Borough (New York City)

New York City, in the state of New York, in the United States, is composed of five boroughs. They are Manhattan, The Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island. Each borough has the same boundaries as a county of the state. The county governments were dissolved when the city consolidated in 1898, along with all city, town, and village governments within each county.

The term borough was adopted to describe a unique form of governmental administration for each of the five fundamental constituent parts of the newly consolidated city. Under New York State Law, a "borough" is a municipal corporation that is created when a county is merged with populated areas within it. This differs significantly from typical borough forms of government used in Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, other states, Greater London, and elsewhere.

Background

New York City can be referred to collectively as the five boroughs; the term is used to refer to New York City as a whole unambiguously, avoiding confusion with any particular borough or with the greater metropolitan area. The term is often used by politicians to counter a frequent focus on Manhattan and, thereby, to place all five boroughs on equal footing. In the same vein, the term outer boroughs (or outer boros) refers to all the boroughs excluding Manhattan, even though the geographic center of the city is along the Brooklyn and Queens border.

Open letter

An open letter is a letter that is intended to be read by a wide audience, or a letter intended for an individual, but that is nonetheless widely distributed intentionally.

Open letters usually take the form of a letter addressed to an individual but provided to the public through newspapers and other media, such as a letter to the editor or blog. Especially common are critical open letters addressed to political leaders.

Currently there are very few sites solely specialising in publishing open letters. However, there are community sites where visitors can publish their own letters and promote them to a wider audience. Sociological or historical research on open letters are also not found, although sociologists and historians have written open letters. Recently, a professor of anthropology at Vidyasagar University in India has written a comprehensive article on open letter.

Letters patent are another form of open letter in which a legal document is both mailed to a person by the government, and publicized so that all are made aware of it. Open letters can also be addressed directly to a group rather than any individual.

Staten Island

Staten Island /ˌstætən ˈaɪlənd/ is one of the five boroughs (counties) of New York City, in the state of New York, in the United States. In the southwest of the city, Staten Island is the southernmost part of both the city and state of New York, with Conference House Park at the southern tip of the island and the state. The borough is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull, and from the rest of New York by New York Bay. With a 2014 Census-estimated population of 473,279, Staten Island is the least populated of the boroughs but is the third-largest in area at 58 sq mi (150 km²). The borough is coextensive with Richmond County, and until 1975 was officially the Borough of Richmond. Its flag was later changed to reflect this, though the official seal remains unchanged. Staten Island has been sometimes called "the forgotten borough" by inhabitants who feel neglected by the city government.

The North Shore — especially the neighborhoods of St. George, Tompkinsville, Clifton, and Stapleton — is the most urban part of the island; it contains the officially designated St. George Historic District and the St. Paul’s Avenue-Stapleton Heights Historic District, which feature large Victorian houses. The East Shore is home to the 2.5-mile (4 km) F.D.R. Boardwalk, the fourth-longest in the world. The South Shore, site of the 17th-century Dutch and French Huguenot settlement of developed rapidly beginning in the 1960s and 1970s; it is mostly suburban in character. The West Shore is the least populated and most industrial part of the island.

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern United States and is the United States' 27th-most extensive, fourth-most populous, and seventh-most densely populated state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south and Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont to the east. The state has a maritime border in the Atlantic Ocean with Rhode Island, east of Long Island, as well as an international border with the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the north and Ontario to the west and north. The state of New York, with an estimated 19.8 million residents in 2015, is often referred to as New York State to distinguish it from New York City, the state's most populous city and its economic hub.

With an estimated population of nearly 8.5 million in 2014, New York City is the most populous city in the United States and the premier gateway for legal immigration to the United States. The New York City Metropolitan Area is one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world. New York City is a global city, exerting a significant impact upon commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and entertainment, its fast pace defining the term New York minute. The home of the United Nations Headquarters, New York City is an important center for international diplomacy and has been described as the cultural and financial capital of the world, as well as the world's most economically powerful city. New York City makes up over 40% of the population of New York State. Two-thirds of the state's population lives in the New York City Metropolitan Area, and nearly 40% live on Long Island. Both the state and New York City were named for the 17th century Duke of York, future King James II of England. The next four most populous cities in the state are Buffalo, Rochester, Yonkers, and Syracuse, while the state capital is Albany.

To the 5 Boroughs

To the 5 Boroughs is the sixth studio album by the Beastie Boys. The album was released on June 14, 2004 internationally, and a day later in the United States. The album debuted #1 on the Billboard 200 with 360,000 copies sold in its first week and is certified Platinum by the RIAA for sales of over 1,000,000 in the U.S.

Release and Promotion

The album's lead single "Ch-Check It Out" debuted on The O.C. in "The Strip" from Season 1, airing on April 28, 2004. The album was the cause of some controversy with allegations that it installed spyware when inserted into the CD-ROM of a computer. The band has denied this allegation saying there is no copy protection software on the albums sold in the U.S. and in the U.K. While there is Macrovision's CDS-200 copy protection software installed on European copies of the album this is standard practice for all European releases on EMI/Capitol Records released in Europe and it does not install spyware or any form of permanent software.